


Between the Sheets

by flickerthenflare



Category: Glee
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Character, Communication, Engagement, Episode Related, M/M, Nude Photos, Photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:44:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flickerthenflare/pseuds/flickerthenflare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Kurt leaves for New York again, he takes pictures for Blaine to remember him by that are more illicit than the kind Blaine keeps in his scrapbook. Set during 5x01.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Sheets

“We’re crazy for this, you know. I have to let you go. Again. In a matter of days.” Kurt’s plaintive sigh is all for show given the enthusiasm he just showed for their reunion that has Blaine catching his breath and clutching at sheets. Kurt favors Blaine with a lopsided grin and a nudge as he drops next to him. “I prefer having you right by my side but you know I can’t move my flight again.”

Blaine huffs in breathless acknowledgment. He soaks up Kurt’s body heat permeating his cooling skin, and the smell of his cologne, and the sound of his voice unaltered by distance.

“We have time.” A few days, and then the lifetime he’ll ask for once those days are up. He can handle the distance. He keeps his secret to himself for now, but he’s more worried about getting to _yes_ than the following distance that won’t last nearly as long as winter felt.

“We could pick a time that’s ours,” Kurt muses. “No matter what, we talk at that time. Like a reoccurring calendar appointment, but sexy.”

“We’re going to be fine.” He knows what it’s like to be without Kurt, and he’s never going to feel that way again, miles between them or not. He won’t let it happen. “We’re going to be _amazing_.”

“You’re too calm after orgasms to plan anything,” Kurt complains without heat. Kurt rearranges them until he's in his favorite spot: hugging Blaine’s side, his head on Blaine’s chest, with Blaine’s arm wrapped around him. “And your fabric softener smells distractingly like lilacs. And sex.” He presses him nose against Blaine’s chest instead, which likely smells like both those things as well. “It makes it hard for me to plan anything either.”

Blaine sucks his breath in as he's hit with memories of Kurt settling on him just like this in a long line of orgasms and close calls and makeout sessions that stretched into laziness, dating back to the first time Kurt lay with him. It hasn't been long since he last went to bed with Kurt – just since February, which is no time at all compared to the drought before it – but Kurt hasn't arranged them like this since before he left.

Blaine’s gasp for breath doesn't go unnoticed. Kurt looks up without moving from his spot. "Blaine? Am I crushing you?"

“I’m having a moment. It’s good.” 

Kurt is the best kind of too much. The feeling overwhelms him less as he breathes through it until he's wrapped in it like he's wrapped in Kurt. He holds Kurt even tighter.

“ _Amazing_ ,” he repeats. “We’re going to be amazing.”

He can feel Kurt’s grin. Kurt kisses the skin closest to his mouth - ribs, it turns out - and settles back down.

“You can call me during all the workouts you’ve failed to tell me about,” Blaine offers. He traces patterns on Kurt’s shoulder.

“The conversation won’t be that titillating when I’m panting and….” He catches himself and they both grin dopily at each other. “I walked right into that.”

Blaine taps his nose. “Silly.” Kurt suffers the indignity of a bop on his upturned nose and cooing at his cuteness with crossed eyes. “I’m not opposed to making more very nice memories to keep me company when you’re gone. Is that a plan?”

Kurt’s body is already on board, hard again against Blaine’s thigh in what Blaine assumes must be record time. Blaine’s not there yet, not quite, but Kurt’s hands provides nothing but encouragement in that direction as they smooth from sternum to belly button with the sheet edging lower, then dance away when Blaine’s hips cant toward them. Kurt brushes one of his caresses too low to just tease and pulls a whine from between Blaine’s lips.

“Can I tell you I’m going to spend a lot of time thinking about you without the layers once you’re gone? Like, a lot.” Blaine lifts up the thin sheet blocking below their waists from sight to elaborate his point.

Kurt preens under the attention. “Only when I’m not around?” He twists his hips to improve Blaine’s view.

Blaine purses his lips to keep from licking them. Words spill out instead. “You make me wish I had a photographic memory. I have plenty of vivid memories that cover every inch of you, but if I could call up any split second at will, I … wow, I wouldn’t do anything else. My mind would be the Kurt Hummel channel 24/7. Variations on a Kurt Hummel sans clothes theme.”

His eyes rake down Kurt’s body shown off for his benefit. His shoulders that get broader each time Blaine sees him, a change he likely wouldn’t notice if he saw Kurt every day but stands out starkly against Blaine’s memory. His slim waist that Blaine’s hands are always drawn to first. His cock – Blaine gets his hands on that a lot too. His thighs. His long legs. Kurt tips his hips forward. Blaine’s eyes follow the movement.

Kurt nods toward Blaine’s shelves. “You have a lot of cameras.”

“I do,” he agrees without thought to the words when Kurt’s body has captured all his attention. They can get Kurt new headshots in the backyard to take advantage of the natural light or move somewhere else in the house that doesn’t have green walls if that’s what he wants. They’ve done photo shoots before – like Kurt’s presidential run and Kurt’s senior pictures for the McKinley yearbook – and Blaine may be biased but it’s what he assumes it’s like working with the most professional (save for the occasional giggling), sweetest model. Put a camera on Kurt and any denial he has about his own attractiveness melts away. He just vogues. Blaine’s a decent photographer thanks to years of practice – although he pretends he dropped the hobby whenever Cooper asks with an obvious ulterior motive – but with Kurt as his model he feels like an artist.

Kurt tips his shoulders in a coy slide. His lip twists into a smirk. “The rules of sexual this-for-that dictate that I could have pictures of you if you have them of me.”

Blaine takes his eyes off his boyfriend’s dick long enough to see if Kurt’s teasing and Blaine missed realizing it by voice alone. Sometimes Kurt teases; he gets in the mood to titillate, and his filter drops, and he voices fantasies so vivid they put Blaine’s to shame. This is far from the first surprise expression of a kink. Blaine doesn’t expect every fantasy fulfilled, not even with the lifetime he has planned for them, but Blaine also didn’t think sex out in the open would ever happen, no matter how Kurt fantasized, until Kurt had him laid out in the backseat of a Prius. Kurt’s hard to predict.

“That’s what you’re asking for, right?” There’s a waver of uncertainty in Kurt’s voice.

He likes the idea plenty. Of course there was wishful thinking that came before the photographic memory fantasy, but, of the two, he deemed it even more unlikely than developing a new ability rarely seen outside of detective shows. He doesn’t need supernatural intervention, it seems. Just the most unpredictable or indulgent boyfriend ever. It’s the indulgent part that worries him.

When he answers, he speaks carefully. “I don’t want to pressure you. It’s just a thought – a very sexy thought – that can stay a fantasy.” He fixes the sheet back over Kurt’s exposed hip with the smooth of his hand. Their relationship is still such a new thing if only counting from the second official start. His imagination gets ahead of him. With Kurt he wants so much: he’ll ask Kurt to marry him in less than a week. He doesn’t need to rush anything else.

“It is adorable that you think I have difficulty denying you anything,” Kurt teases. “What’s the fantasy, exactly?”

“I…You brought it up!” All Blaine did was think too obviously.

“Blaine.” Kurt gives him a too-knowing look. “I understand why this would be something you would want: you’re the one who documents our relationship through pictures. You like porn. You work my clothes off often enough that I’m presuming you like that too.”

Blaine squirms. Kurt knows him. Before he even asks. Even if he doesn’t intend to ask. He’s good at following hunches on what Blaine wants and coaxing him to vocalize them. But Blaine’s not adding something new to his list of requests this week. It’s too much on top of getting Kurt to be his boyfriend again and the proposal on its way. Even Blaine understands there are limits.

Kurt tries a different angle. “Will it make it easier on you when we’re apart?”

“You can’t expect objectivity from me on the subject of _you_ and _nudity_ ,” Blaine protests. “Kurt. Of course I want any picture of you, irrespective of how many layers you’re wearing, that you’ll grant me. And as much as I love your clothes” – he gestures at the tangled pile of green on top of yellow on top of purple on the floor – “you’re my favorite part of you. I always want to see you. But I’m not asking you for this. I was just talking. You shouldn’t…” Blaine rethinks the words that sound too directing for their relationship and starts again. “I don’t want you to feel obligated. I don’t need proof. I will miss you every minute that you’re gone, but I won’t forget, pictures or not. They’re…” Blaine loses words for a moment and fights to get them back. “Out of everything you are to me, they’re just scratching the surface. A picture doesn’t mean anything compared to knowing I have _you_.”

Rather than being touched by Blaine’s consideration, Kurt huffs like he’s been put out.

“Are you doing the thing where you refuse politely two times and will only say yes on the third invitation? We agreed to try and not do that when it comes to sex. It’s a shared experience, not the last brownie at a picnic. There’s no need to be all, ‘ _no thanks, I couldn’t possibly…. Well, alright if you insist_.’ It’s not gauche to express an interest or agree to something you want. It’s preferred.”

Something about entertaining new sexual experiences makes Blaine want to be gentle with the 17 year old who asked him to leave for attempting a conversation on their desires; the boy who covered his ears and sang when Blaine tried to lay out clearly at the tail-end of their third date that he has no expectations or timeline for their relationship. (Blaine realizes now it was too soon for Kurt to hear even that much, but better to discuss, in his mind, than not, and he was trying so very hard to be a responsible adult worthy of the tie and blazer he donned every day.) He thinks of the 18 year old who alternated dizzyingly fast between wanting to open a window and wanting to tear off their clothes that Blaine tried not to lead him one way or another.

But assuming the other will take the lead builds up a lot of desires unfulfilled if they both take that approach, and treating Kurt like a timid youth when he’s trying not to be either doesn’t give him much incentive for the effort. After all, Kurt’s also the own who bought them condoms in obscene quantities without the crack of a smile or hint or embarrassment, who read Blaine his lengthy bucket list of fantasies and let Blaine add the date behind each that he helped cross off. And Kurt has never claimed to be interested in something he isn’t, save for 10 seconds about football before quickly amending his statement to be about scarves.

“My comfort is contingent upon yours. It always is.”

He means to say more before Kurt cuts him off with an affectionate roll of his eyes.  

“If I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t offer it. You can work under the assumption that I’m at least warming to the idea.”

“It’s hot,” Blaine confesses, the words spilling out the second he has confirmation they might be well received. “You know what seeing all of you does to me. You’re gorgeous. We’d do something tasteful. Classy.” He says _classy_ with a flourish of his hands. “Hypothetically.”

“Can I say I’m shocked by how I’m actually considering nude photos? Like, how many cautionary tales worthy of Lifetime movies have we heard about dirty pictures regretted later? I don’t want anyone stumbling on a picture of me like that. A click of the mouse and the whole world could see my gassy-sexy faces meant only for you.” Blaine kisses him loudly on the cheek for that. “I don’t want anyone else seeing you like that either. I want you like this just for me.”

“I know. I know it’s supposed to be a bad idea.” There’s his career. There’s the embarrassment factor. There’s his nosy brother. He hasn’t suggested pictures for a reason.

“But. One the other hand… You're my best friend. I'm not capable of regretting you. I've tried. Actively. We broke up, and I know if we had pictures then, they wouldn’t have gone anywhere intentionally. You’re not the kind of person who gets revenge.” Kurt’s eyes roll up toward the ceiling as he loses himself in the memory. “You’re always going to be my best friend, even if we crash and burn in the backslide.”

They’re never going to break up. They’re getting married if Blaine gets the answer he wants.

Blaine squirms with too much happiness for one small body every time he thinks about marrying Kurt. Kurt, in his life for as long as it lasts. Until he finds him again. He’ll take every moment Kurt will give him. Potentially awkward ones included.

“We’ll need precautions though. I know you won’t share anything we make, but how many times have you attached the wrong files in an email? Remember that time you accidentally sent me a link to porn?”

“Oh, so you do believe it was an accident now.”

Blaine smiles at the memory, so awkward in the time of Kurt resolute stance against porn or them imitating anything that might belong in one of _those movies_ , with Kurt’s silence at Blaine’s profuse apologies that he meant to copy a different link finally broken by “is there something you’d like to ask me?” He has accidentally sent Kurt more innocuous mix-ups, like a history paper when he meant to send his bucket list, but the porn is by far the hardest to live down.

“It was an accident the first time. The following two I’m not so sure.” Kurt smiles along with him. The second two times came after Kurt confessed that seeing what turns Blaine on won out over his apprehension and he clicked the link despite Blaine’s reassurance that he expected nothing. “And excuse me for thinking you give unsubtle hints. I don’t know why I would possibly believe that.”

“You would never,” Blaine teases right back. Kurt’s hints are often nonverbal and easier to deny later if he so chooses, but Blaine knows to watch for them. Kurt expresses himself with a roll of his hips, or a pout when Blaine stops doing something he appreciates, or the slide of his eyes to whatever part of Blaine’s body he’s most interested in exploring at the moment.

“Never,” Kurt agrees. He tips his cheek toward Blaine for a kiss. He holds the pose until Blaine provides the requested kiss with a loud smack. “Okay, so, first precaution of many: you get hard copies because you’re clumsy with e-mail attachments; I get the digital ones on a flash drive in a locked safe so even Santana can’t get at it.”

“That’s fine,” Blaine agrees immediately.

“Next precaution will be I reserve the right to delete any unflattering shots. And I get Photoshop rights.”

“No Photoshop,” Blaine counters.

“Not even for acne?”

“Not even.”

“We’ll need to reschedule our illicit photo shoot for after additional moisturizing sessions to get camera-ready, then, but before I leave. And you’ve wrecked my hair.”

Blaine twists his fingers through the locks knocked out of place. He feels no remorse for the events leading up to Kurt’s hair re-styling. “I didn’t think we’d do it today. I didn’t think we’d do it _at all_.”

 “Well, we’re still firmly in the planning stage, but I have an idea to keep the pictures safe from sight. It’s going to be a surprise though, and it’s going to take a little time. I’m not telling you what it is yet. Trust me?”

“I have no objections.” They can both have secret plans. Although he can’t help but think if Kurt’s going to be so agreeable, he should drop his elaborate state-wide plans and propose right now.

***

Blaine’s thoughts alternate between orchestrating a proposal grander than any performance he’s given before and the dirty photo shoot fantasies of every pose he’d like to put Kurt in. He’ll wear canary yellow at the proposal. He’ll put fantasy!Kurt in red briefs and nothing else. And then he feels like he’s setting his own expectations too high and lets fantasy!Kurt have an undershirt as well. And maybe his pants back. When it comes time for their photo shoot, Blaine expects Kurt to demure.  He expects, at most, a few buttons undone, maybe a glimpse at Kurt’s shoulder, before Kurt baulks at the thought of giving any more skin in front of a camera.

In actuality, Kurt examines one of Blaine’s digital camera before turning it on and saying with a bounce, “Show me how it’s done, Mr. January and December.”

Blaine resists fidgeting as Kurt directs the camera toward him and remembers the show choir fundraiser calendar Kurt picked up during his visit in February only to recycle all but the first and the last months. It’s possible Blaine should have seen this photo shoot coming sooner. Blaine has no weirdly placed tattoos and they already know what his mother thinks so at least there’s no _worrying_ about disapproval: porn featuring Blaine must get a pass.

He doesn’t let his nerves show. He blows an exaggerated kiss instead.

“Cute.” Kurt snaps a picture. He grins widely as he checks how the picture turned out on the camera screen. He kisses Blaine in a hurried smack before stepping back to fit more of him in the frame.

Encouraged by the compliment and determined to prove to his often-skittish boyfriend there’s no need to give into nerves, his fingers go to the collar of his polo.

He should’ve picked something with buttons all the way down that can be partially undone for transitional shots, like Kurt, who no doubt dressed for the occasion given the textures and shades that’ll look good in either color or black and white, but he undoes what he can, which is all of two buttons. It’s about as sexy as showing his ankles. Kurt’s not that Victorian.

He slides his hand along his collar, like his clavicle is suddenly fascinating, before sighing in frustration. “That’s not even a thing, is it?”

He steals a glance at Kurt watching patiently with the camera in hand.

“It’s just me. Relax and take off more clothes.”

“I was trying to make it sexy.” He can hear the pout in his voice. If he takes the polo off, he’s down to just pants and underwear he very much doubts he’s taking off as long as Kurt’s holding a camera, which means ‘his turn’ will be over far sooner than he intends with him standing uncertain of what to do for Kurt that doesn’t use clothes as props. His preferred methods of turning Kurt on involve touching him. He mentally scrambles to figure out an alternative that doesn’t skip straight to shots that would be found on a porn website.

“Would you like a costume change? Something more suitable for the strip tease I assume I’m getting?” Kurt tugs playfully on the open collar of Blaine’s polo. “Something more comfortable?”

Blaine smiles gratefully at the kindness to his idle hands that don’t know what to do. “I will take that offer of a costume change and raise you a killer soundtrack to go with it.”

He picks something with a beat that doesn’t scream ‘strip club’s mix during a discounted lunch buffet’ to help shake off the false start. He loses his stiffness, encouraged by the upbeat song and Kurt’s smile behind the lens.

He keeps his eyes on Kurt as he strips his polo over his head. Without the camera present Blaine never feels ill at ease losing layers in front of him, comfortable in his body and comfortable with Kurt. The camera he’s less comfortable with, even if he knows the only intended audience is Kurt, who has seen a slew of unflattering photographs of Blaine over the years. But Kurt is 100% right in assuming he wants this. He forces himself to forget about any uses for a camera besides capturing a moment in time for Kurt to relive. He has no reason to feel self-conscious for Kurt.

He moves to take the new button-up shirt Kurt holds out for him, only for Kurt to impishly withdraw it and dance out of the way with another snap of the camera.

In his retreat, Kurt stumbles over his own sock-clad feet and catches himself on Blaine’s dresser before Blaine catches him.

His hands fall on either side of Kurt’s waist.

“So charming,” Kurt coos. His cheeks are tinged with pink. His eyes linger on Blaine’s bare chest.

“Am I ready for my close up?”

“We were going to try to avoid making that joke.” Kurt’s eyes betray him if he’s trying to convey annoyance at Blaine’s clichés. They fixate next on Blaine’s mouth.

“It’s hard to resist.”

Kurt raises a hand to Blaine’s jaw. “Just let me fix…”

Blaine tips his chin up, eyes closed, and lets Kurt fuss over him. Thumbs trace over his cheeks. Fingers smooth over his eyebrows and sideburns. He’s not fixing so much as playing with curls he sinks his fingers into: Blaine’s hair isn’t going to move.

The nerves Blaine has been pretending don’t exist lessen with each touch from Kurt. Being near Kurt calms him. If he could capture that feeling… he wonders if Kurt is trying to do that for him. Kurt is giving him a reminder of what they have that he can hold onto. He doesn’t know about Blaine’s marriage proposal that will top even this.

Butterflies beat at the thought of the impending proposal. Nothing will make Kurt feel more present, distance be damned, than knowing Kurt has accepted his promise for them to be together for the rest of their lives.

“Perfect.” Kurt presses his lips to Blaine’s. “Don’t be nervous.” His hands move from cupping Blaine’s face to trail down his neck and then his shoulders. “You’re terribly photogenic. You’ll look great.” He slides his hands from bare hip to pecs to stomach and back like a waltz on Blaine’s body. Their touch is cooler than Blaine’s skin. He shivers.

“You’re using me to warm your hands, aren’t you? One day…” Blaine teases at Kurt’s wandering hands. He doesn’t have to finish for Kurt to know the often-repeated punch line about their incompatible body temperatures.

“…When we live together we’re keeping the thermostat where I’d like it,” Kurt finishes for him anyway. “You can wear less clothes.”

“And if I have to answer the door to the sauna you’ve created and all I have on is underwear…”

“I’ve seen your shorts. They don’t cover _more_.” Kurt’s eyes lose their focus as he pictures it.

“You’re considering another costume change already, aren’t you?”

“Not done with this one.” Kurt switches their positions so Blaine’s the one leaning back against the dresser. “But hold onto that thought.”

Kurt sinks to his knees. Blaine’s brain short circuits.

Kurt tugs Blaine’s jeans far lower on his hips than he would ever wear them. “That’s better. I’ve always wanted to direct a photo shoot. At the time I envisioned it’d be fashion, not amateur porn.” He runs his thumbs over the bones and then grins impishly up at Blaine. “Careful, or this is going to devolve into playing dress up.”

Blaine grips at the dresser handles. “Whatever you want. Unless it’s, like, a firefighter outfit, because I don’t have that.”

“I just want you.” Kurt kisses each hipbone. “What about you? What do you want? ‘Wilting flower? Bright and bubbly? Or smoldering temptress?’”

Blaine shakes his head. Kurt _would_ do a Nicole Kidman in _Moulin Rouge_ impression, dramatic poses and all, during foreplay. Of course he would. Blaine is going to marry a man who can out-dork him. God, being married to Kurt is going to be better than anything he could imagine: Before Kurt he though of sex as something he wanted desperately to experience, he wanted someone to want him in that way, but he didn’t think of it as something done for amusement, to tease or play make believe. He didn’t expect unbelievably hot and playful at the same time. He’s going to marry a man who’s all that and his best friend too.

The top-secret proposal in the works threatens to spill out of him. He wants to share everything with Kurt, and that includes surprises that aren’t supposed to be unveiled yet.

Kurt on his knees has the effect on Blaine.

“Blaine?” Kurt taps at his hip. “I know I was having fun, but I do want an answer. Do you want flirty pinup or full-on porno? What’s off limits?”

Kurt mouths at Blaine’s erection through his jeans. Blaine chokes. His boyfriend just leveled up from dirty cute to pornographic cute.

“Too much?” Kurt snaps a picture of Blaine’s startled expression and then holds up the camera teasingly for Blaine to take.

Blaine snatches at the proffered camera before he can miss documenting another second.

Kurt doesn’t waste time in tugging briefs and jeans to the tops of Blaine’s thighs. “Do you have a problem posing nude?”

Technically, he’s not naked. Like covering below his knees counts as propriety when Kurt’s mouth is a breath away from his dick. Blaine’s head rolls back against the wall. “No.”

“I can cover more,” Kurt offers. Kurt wraps around a hand the base of his cock. “I bet I can go deep enough.”

“God.” He’s so not concerned about addressing the non-issue of capturing a blowjob on film coyly. “I’m done trying to predict you. You so don’t have to….”

I don’t,” Kurt agrees. “But what do you want?”

His body threatens to slump even further. Fingers twist against the dresser. He wants anything and everything. Whatever Kurt will give. Kurt is on his knees, hand on Blaine’s hips, and Blaine will take whatever he gives him. He didn’t expect this, but Kurt says he won’t offer what he isn’t willing to give. “Please.”

Kurt kisses the tip of his cock. “Loosen up, honey.” He swipes up precome with his thumb and looks expectantly up at Blaine with the camera frozen in place as he brings it to his lips and licks at fingers instead of cock. “Sometimes we want tangible proof of what we have. I’m not upset at you for wanting something to hold onto. I can give you this. I want to make this as easy on you as I can. And you know I rarely do anything that doesn’t benefit me. Seeing you like this is not a hardship.” He closes his lips around the head and sucks and hums and makes Blaine forget his name, much less that he has fingers that should function if he wants to immortalize this on camera, before pulling off again. “God, I’m not even worried about anything other than your butterfingers. And I have a solution for that.” He lowers his voice to a hush that never fails to make Blaine’s insides quake. “I told you I have plans. Trust me.”

He raises his eyes to meet Blaine’s through the lens and holds his gaze as he waits for a response. Blaine snaps a picture.

Kurt sinks back down.

Kurt’s all energy, giddy at making Blaine happy. Giddy on the power trip as well, most likely, that comes from Blaine nodding along with whatever he wants. His fingers dance on hipbones that try valiantly to stay still.

Blaine tries to keep up with Kurt’s pace. All he has to do is point and shoot. And stay upright. He forgets everything he learned about composing a shot and just clicks. He takes dozens in succession and hopes quantity and photo editing work in his favor.

Kurt has either forgotten about the camera entirely or he’s showing off. Either way, Blaine is dangerously close to ending their photo shoot early once again.

Blaine lowers the camera. There’s no point if he can’t get his own eyes to focus, much less a lens.

The non-blissed out recesses of his mind – the one’s reserved for functioning when senses are otherwise overwhelmed by Kurt – register the barely there tug on the camera. He lets it go into Kurt’s steady grip. He uses the reprieve from Kurt’s mouth to catch his breath. He hears the click of Kurt taking a picture.

“Eyes open?” Blaine’s voice comes out hoarse.

After a click he hears, “yeah.”

Heavy lids budge enough to take Kurt in and remind him he’s missing a beautiful spectacle at his feet.

Kurt sits back on his haunches with the camera in hand. He doesn’t direct, but he clicks more when Blaine gives him a fuzzy smile.

Blaine presses back against the dresser so Kurt can fit more of him in the frame.

“You want to move, honey?”

Blaine nods vehemently. He has more than he ever hoped for already. He’s not fool enough to tell Kurt to stop offering more.

Kurt pushes off the ground. “Okay. Let’s do this right: costume change to go with the scene change.”

“God, really, Kurt? Right now?” Blaine whines. He’s already shimmying the rest of his way out of the jeans pushed to his knees, but it’s not with the intention of putting anything else on. He waves a hand at Kurt’s vest on top of a shirt on top of an undershirt and the ascot at his neck and the socks still on his feet. “This is getting disproportionate.”

“I brought a change. And you can always put me in yours.”

It’s Blaine’s turn to trip. He kicks his jeans of the rest of the way. “How are you so good at this?”

“It’s _clothes_ ,” Kurt says by way of explanation.

Blaine pulls on the shortest for excuse athletic shorts he owns. Despite what Kurt teases, they still cover more than his briefs, even if just barely. He stretches and shakes out tense muscles to distract himself from how close he was to declaring an early end to their photo shoot.

He bends and waits for Kurt to notice.

Kurt is thoroughly occupied with fussing with his hair in the mirror over the dresser. He shakes the can of hairspray he must have brought with him for the occasion.

He sprays enough hairspray to make himself a fire safety concern.

“Hey. You’re missing your show.” Blaine stretches his arms above his head.

Once he realizes he has Blaine’s attention, Kurt’s eyes meet his through the mirror and he toys with first the buttons on his vest and then the shirt. Blaine watches Kurt’s reflection looking impish and bright back at him. Kurt trails his fingers along the widening opening of his shirt and there’s the look Blaine was going for: the one where there’s the possibility of more than two inches of exposure.

“Okay, I get it. _Your_ clavicle’s sexy,” Blaine grumbles. He slides behind Kurt.

Kurt drops his hands and tips his chin to hold Blaine’s gaze through the reflection. “Yours too. That’s why I took your shirt off,” he says pointedly.

Blaine accepts the invitation and goes to work on the rest of Kurt’s buttons. He gives control of the camera over to Kurt. “Stop taking pictures whenever you want.”

The undershirt Blaine assumes to be there isn’t; there’s just skin and more skin confirming Kurt intentionally dressed for the camera. Kurt preens for the mirror as Blaine takes over undoing buttons with his chin tucked over Kurt’s shoulder.

Kurt works the camera while Blaine explores. He makes each move deliberately slow, savoring the fantasy come true and giving Kurt ample time to put an end to it.

Blaine shifts the widening shirt opening, now halfway down Kurt’s chest, to expose a nipple that pebbles under his gaze – their gaze, given how Kurt still has the camera in hand, his cheeks pinker than when they started. He traces his thumb over the nipple standing at attention.

Kurt jerks. He strains toward Blaine’s hands until he decides it looks unattractive and whines instead. “C’mon. Make this worth remembering.”

Blaine drops his hand to join his thumb rubbing on Kurt’s skin. He holds his palm over Kurt’s heart to feel it thump.

He kisses the side of Kurt’s neck. He has two shirt halves separated now that tease at a strip of skin from sternum to navel that he widens. He warms Kurt’s shoulder with his lips.

Kurt shifts and catches himself each time his concentration is about to break. Blaine drops the shirt to the floor. Kurt’s shifting becomes more and more pronounced. Little quakes with closing frequency.

“God, Blaine, I can feel you.” Kurt pushing back against him makes it obvious which part he means. He tips back against Blaine and shoots photos blindly. “I want to have you under me. I can feel you rubbing against me and it’s patently unfair.”

Kurt twists his neck to catch Blaine’s mouth with his. Blaine feels blindly for the camera in Kurt’s hand to make sure they capture it.

Blaine rolls his hips. He works Kurt’s pants down and off and repeats the motion against Kurt’s bare skin.

Kurt’s whining pitches higher. “Blaine, _move_. I don’t want to get friction from your less forgiving pieces of furniture. You have a mattress you could be fucking me into.”

Attempts at grace are forsaken for speed. They tumble onto the bed. Blaine grabs at the tangle of clothes at Kurt’s knees to prevent total disaster.

Kurt tugs him toward the headboard. Blain crawls forward until Kurt has him hovering on hands and knees over him. He pushes at the athletic shorts he insisted Blaine put on mere moments ago.

The shorts are halfway down his ass when Kurt gasps. “We forgot the workout pictures!” Kurt looks torn at the realization before snapping a picture of Blaine straddling him in short shorts and then dropping the camera to the side declaring, “good enough until next time.” He goes back to pushing at them until they get caught on Blaine’s spread legs.

Blaine wiggles to get out of what’s left of his clothes without accidentally kneeing his boyfriend. He rolls onto his back, hips raised in the air. The camera flashes repeatedly in Kurt’s hands.

“I’m glad you captured that dignified moment on film.” He tosses the shorts and briefs at Kurt.

Kurt grins impishly. “Me too.” He teases his fingers down toward his cock.

Blaine fumbles with the camera to get onto the tripod. It goes more smoothly when he doesn’t watch Kurt stretching out underneath him stroking himself slowly. Or the way his hips cant up seeking friction.

Kurt grabs at Blaine as soon as the camera is secure. “Don’t make me wait.”

The tripod is within reach if he straddles Kurt and stretches. Blaine switches between kissing down Kurt’s chest and pausing to set the 10-second delay again and again.

“You’re such a tease,” Kurt says and they both laugh. He urges Blaine forward to rub against bare skin instead of just hover. “Let's make you future self incredibly jealous.”

Blaine hides a smile in Kurt’s neck. Future Blaine will have a fiancé, a collection of pictures of him, and the memory of today. Even with as much as he'll miss Kurt once he’s back in New York, he has plenty of reasons to be jealous of his future self.

Blaine kisses at his neck. Kurt’s pulse jumps. He hums and sucks harder.

Kurt can’t complain about the cold now. He’s warm to the touch every place that Blaine meets and hotter still when Blaine leaves. He sucks kisses into skin that reddens under his lips. His default is to get as close to Kurt as possible. His future self with have to forgive him for an understandably blocking of the shot.

Kurt’s hands flex against the sheets and then against Blaine’s skin when he grows impatient with 10 second delay games. Kurt’s hips jerk up against nothing. “C’mon, c’mon,” Kurt whines and then startles when Blaine presses back down with an “ _oh_.”

Blaine reaches for the camera one last time to capture Kurt’s look of startled bliss at catching the orgasm he’s been chasing.

Kurt’s too loose limbed to do anything but fumble through touches to coax Blaine into following his lead. A light direct touch from Blaine’s own hand is all it takes. Endearments spill out with come that paints his fingers and Kurt below him.

Kurt grabs the camera. Blaine moans between pants, still straddling Kurt. “Do you not believe in recovery time?” It’s a silly question: he knows Kurt doesn’t.

Kurt sets down the camera after a few clicks. “Kiss me.”

At the command Blaine collapses heavily by his side. He wriggles until he can reach Kurt’s mouth and kisses at him through Kurt’s wide grin.

Kurt holds the camera above them.

“They’re going to turn out blurry and off center,” Blaine moans into a kiss.

“But practice makes perfect.”

Blaine steadies the camera with the hand he’s not using to coax Kurt closer.

They've done this pose dozens of times, starting with the bus ride back to Dalton after their loss at regionals when their spirits were too high for the rest of the team to stand, repeated the summer Kurt turned from the camera to Blaine’s cheek at the last second outside the gates of the Six Flags where Blaine was working, and continued on after that. They’ve perfected the art of kissing for the camera.

Blaine keeps kissing him as the camera flashes. Just in case.

***

Kurt likes the shower water hotter than Blaine does, so Blaine dances in and out of the stream while Kurt stands directly under, head tilted up, letting it run over him like he’s in supplication to the intense heat. Kurt surprises Blaine when he wakes from the steam-induced trance and catches him around the middle on one of the darts out of the water. He unknots the tension built up in Blaine’s shoulders and then works soap down over the rest of him. The soap lather smells like lilacs. Blaine possibly went overboard with the scent when he realized its connection to Kurt’s fantasies.

They leave the camera untouched on the counter.

 “Any regrets?” Blaine asks after they stumble out redder than they went in and towel off surrounded in steam.

Kurt shakes his head. “You?” He reclines against the counter wrapped in the plush robe Blaine offers him. Steam obscures everything in the mirror behind Kurt like Kurt has come out of the mist.

“You’re always the good kind of too much.” Blaine twists a towel around his hips.

Kurt’s usually high hair falls in his eyes. It's more like he wore it when they first met, before he realized high hair makes his face look more angular and striking, a bold statement to match his bold clothes. The old style is now rarely seen in public. He looks so sweet and young. Blaine brushes bangs out of the way. Kurt must feel indulgent since he lets him.

“We don’t have to do anything with the pictures. We don’t even have to look at them if you don’t want to. You can delete them right now.”

Blaine clutches the camera possessively. “I’m keeping them _forever_.”

“Alright then. Let’s look at the damage to our egos.” He steers Blaine out of the adjoined bathroom and toward the desk. “You can set up the computer. Close all your internet applications first: we’re not taking chances.”

Blaine turns the wireless on his computer off with an exaggerated roll of his eyes that’s hard to force when he’s loose and glowing from sex and steam. “Ready.”

Tucked in together they test the weight limit of Blaine’s chair. Kurt ends up more on than off, twisted sideways with long legs kicked over the edge.

“Okay, so I think we’ll make three folders: one to share, one for pictures I never ever want to see again but you can keep, and the same in the reverse for you, although I doubt that’ll be much of an issue given how handsome you are. And the trash is for extreme cases too unflattering to be allowed to exist. Shared will be the default until we say otherwise.”

“Okay,” Blaine agrees. Blaine slips an arm around Kurt’s waist and lets Kurt control the computer. His plush robe feels more decadent when it’s wrapped around Kurt and Blaine is wrapped around both of them. He leans his cheek into Kurt’s shoulder.

Kurt sorts the pictures with a critical eye. “I still can’t believe I forgot to take a picture of your butt. I really wanted that. How do we have all these pictures and not a single one is of your butt?”

“I’m on top of you. You’re going to see my butt.” Blaine gestures at the screen.

“It’d be nice to have it as a nice focal point.” He sighs wistfully.

“Zoom and crop,” he teased and then kisses Kurt’s scowl away.

“I was just so distracted by the front of you!” He moves a few more approved pictures to their shared folder. Blaine has his eye out for a few artistic shots he can print and appreciates the rest as keepsakes if not brilliant photographs, but Kurt is on a mission to maintain his image. He scrutinizes each before it’s moved.

The pictures reveal that Blaine didn't hide his surprise at Kurt’s forwardness as well as he thought. Multiple shots have his eyebrows arching toward his hairline. His tense posture disappears after the first dozen or so after Kurt takes pity on him and provides direction. He laughs at himself more than once, but he’s fine with them. Looking completely out of his element is nothing Kurt hasn’t seen before.

Kurt approves far more photos than Blaine expects. Every single one moves to the shared folder after scrutiny, until they reach one he closes out of immediately.

“Pretend you’ve never seen me look that stupid. Oh my god.” Kurt covers Blaine’s eyes.

“You’re adorable,” Blaine protests, but he keeps his eyes closed behind Kurt’s fingers until Kurt sends to offending image to the trash.

They jointly move a few more to the shared folder without issue, and then Kurt cringes at another one. “Can I delete this or do you want it in your folder? I look like I swallowed a hunk of wasabi, but you look good in it.”

Blaine nuzzles against the fluffy fabric at Kurt’s shoulder. “There’s a finite number of pictures I can print. I don’t see the point of setting aside one you don’t like when we took far more than anticipated and there are plenty of other options.”

“We can reevaluate the arrangement,” Kurt says quickly. “This is just for now. You know it’s not that I don’t trust your _intentions_. Anything you don’t print will still be on my flash drive. You can keep as much as you want.”

Blaine shushes him. “I’m not making a complaint! I don’t think I’m capable of complaining after what you put me through.”

Kurt shrugs. He re-crosses his legs over Blaine’s lap. “Maybe I’ll get brave and send them to you one at a time, like a _very exclusive_ photo of the day club. Some sort of ‘we’ve gone x-number of days without an accident’ program. We'll see. You might just get New York scenery, but I'll try to work up the nerve.”

It would beat the sock of the month club present that Blaine suspects is a ruse to convince him to wear socks when it’s not a dress code requirement. And definitely something to look forward to even if Kurt swaps the pictures for New York scenery. He’ll still have something from Kurt each day. “I don’t need them on my computer. That’s all I was trying to get at. I don’t understand why I have folders.”

“Well, until then, I have somewhere else for you to keep your copies.” Kurt hops up to retrieves his satchel and produces a package from inside.

Blaine turns the photo paper over in his hands. “Is this . . .?” Blaine lifts the tab to peek inside. “I’ve never gotten a sexy present before.”

“They’re blank, honey. They’re not sexy yet. You don’t think the exfoliating kit I got you last year for your birthday was sexy?” He presses a kiss to the top of Blaine’s damp hair to save him from feeling obligated to answer. Kurt reaches back into his bag. “Now for your more exciting present.”

Blaine fans his photo paper that he likes so much better knowing it’s not going to stay blank. “What I’ve got is awfully promising.”

“You have to pretend to like this one better.” Kurt pulls out an unwrapped book and presses it to Blaine’s hands.

He recognizes his scrapbook immediately. It’s their relationship scrapbook. He put the scrapbook together when pining for Kurt – scrapbooking being one of the dozens of clubs he joined to fill the void of time previously spent with Kurt – and it’s the one he cried over when he though he’d never have anything else to add to it. Each page says he loves Kurt, he misses Kurt, he's holding onto memories when he can't hold onto the man. Blaine accepts it gingerly.

“Did you steal this from my shelf?”

“There’s more to it now. I went through my own keepsakes. Notice how thick it’s gotten? I have a whole box under my bed devoted to you. I was going through it anyway to see what would fit in my carry on, and I decided that the pieces that’ll lie flat in a book I can entrust you to bring with you when you come.”

Blaine flips back and forth between the vibrantly colored book bursting with scrapbook pages in slick photo sleeves and find new pages added. There are love notes (although they didn't call them that at the time) passed between classes at Dalton, and later notes from their time at McKinley when they called them exactly what they were. He turns to an old letter. “I forgot I wrote this.”  
Kurt lets out a pretend huff. “You better still mean it. It's one of my favorites.”

Blaine keeps turning pages. There's a series of photo booth pictures - one of their many guilty pleasures when wasting time at the mall - and the receipt from the first time Kurt bought dinner, as memorialized in the margins. Kurt’s COURAGE collage from his locker. The lyrics to _One Hand, One Heart_. A pressed pink carnation. The poem Kurt had written him two summers ago. Printed texts from dozens of silly or romantic messages between them. A doodle from Kurt’s journal that said _Kurt + Blaine_. The tickets from when they went to see _Rent_. There's a hotel key he must've never returned. Prom pictures from both years with _Blaine Warbler, will you go to prom with me?_ written along the side. Red rose petals as embellishments.

“It’s pretty full now, but I thought we could add to it. The photo paper is for the new pictures.”

“I can’t put … people look at scrapbooks, Kurt!”

“We can slide the pictures between the existing pages. The only way you could see them is by removing them from the sleeves and you’d have to know they were there. I was looking through my mementos anyway and I – I want the reminder of the private aspects of our relationship, but I didn’t like the idea of pictures that were just about sex; despite what you just saw, I have no desire to be a porn star. But in the context of everything else in our relationship – how much I love you and every moment where we’ve been there for each other – those are the things that make sleeping with you more than this base thing about bodies and urges. I like that it means something. I like that you have to be reminded of the rest of our relationship. Like you have to see our dorky zoo pictures before you get to sex kitten. I want all of it to be on your mind and for it to be somewhere only you and I can see.”

Blaine tears his eyes away from the book. “You made dirty pictures romantic. That is, like, the sweetest thing ever.”  
Kurt laughs. “I know, I ruin everything, right? You don't feel tricked, do you?”

“I love it.”

He flips through the scrapbook further. Now there are pages upon pages of items that mean something to Kurt and show how Kurt feels about him rather than just how he feels about Kurt. The love notes are Blaine’s, but Kurt saved them. Kurt hung a picture of him with an inspirational mantra in his locker for years and kept it after graduation and now it’s bound with the rest of their keepsakes. He can't forget that he matters to Kurt with a reminder of that.

He murmurs to the pages, “It's a better commemoration than I would've dreamed of. This way, when I’m bored and pining, I’ll have a new craft project.”

Kurt lights up. “Yes, I believe the craft store sells stickers in case you feel like you missed your opportunity for props. You could get a pack of wedding stickers and add a top hat.”

Blaine dips his head to hide how bright he knows his eyes just got at the mention of wedding themed scrapbooking supplies. One step at a time. He’ll pick those up after Kurt accepts his proposal.

“We said we’d try for classy,” Kurt continues to tease. “Just because they’re hidden doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be fabulous.”

“I’ll stick with the encouragement stickers. You know, an assortment of _way to go_ , _awesome job, super, wow!_ seems good. Maybe I’ll even repurpose some of Rachel's gold stars.”

“Do the hidden pages get glitter too?”

“If thematically appropriate. Do you remember the time…?”

“ _Twilight_ roleplay was a mistake,” Kurt says briskly. “We won’t be repeating it.”

“My poor sheets.” He grins through his lament. He didn’t regret giving into Kurt’s elaborate fantasies resulting in a smeared tribal tattoo on his arm and glitter residue across his sheets then, and he doesn’t regret it now even knowing how long the glitter stayed.

“My poor skin,” Kurt counters without any heat.

Blaine blows him another kiss. This is the man he’s going to marry. He’ll look back on them, days before his proposal, silly in love with each other, clearly smitten in each picture. He thinks of the pictures he can put side by side: the ones he took and the ones by Kurt, one from each perspective. Soon they’re going to take engagement photos. Maybe they can do sexy engagement photos after the official engagement ones. They can create an entirely new book. He wants to kiss Kurt in front of every New York landmark there is and then retreat to Kurt’s apartment and put the full mirror in his bedroom to use. They'll make the city belong to both of them, make the two of them together as irreversibly linked to Kurt’s new place as Blaine’s bedroom in Lima is.

“Are you okay?” Kurt asks when Blaine has been quiet for too long. “This isn’t a strange way of saying goodbye. You know it isn’t. I wouldn’t put all my keepsakes in your book if I didn’t think we’ll share it once we’re finally in the same place.”

“I know.” Blaine clutches the scrapbook to his chest at the promise of future joint ownership and beams. 


End file.
